The sea can create its own clouds too...

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In my last blog, I wrote about how mountains can sometimes create their own clouds.

Did you know the sea can do it too?

Greg Johnson at SkunkBayWeather.com got some great time lapse video from Thursday that shows a layer of fog that hugged the waterline -- what some call "sea fog".

It's created when the air is fairly humid on its own, and the chilly waters then cool the air near the surface just that extra little bit to bring the air to saturation and fog.

This happens on a much larger scale out in the Pacific Ocean. It's the relatively cool, 50-55 degree waters offshore that create a frequent fog layer off the coast, then the usually-dominant-but-not-this-summer westerly winds carry the fog and low clouds inland into Seattle, where we usually-but-not-this-summer have to wait until midday or so for the sun to burn off the fog, only to repeat the process again.

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Walk around the Puget Sound area and you'll notice trees starting to bloom and perhaps the whirr of a lawn mower or two, even though winter still had a solid 3-4 weeks left in its reign.

Seattle finished up February as the warmest on record, on the heels of a very warm January (and record-warm December) as well, and the early spring-time weather has in tandem brought out the first signs of spring.

In what will go down as one of the best -- or worst -- winters on record, depending on what you want out of a Seattle winter, now there will be some meteorological trophies to go along with the memories.

Seattle has set its record for all-time warmest February since official measurements began at Sea-Tac Airport. The average temperature (high temperature plus low temperature, divided by two) was 48.8 degrees narrowly edging 1977's record at 48.7. (And I mean narrowly. Had Saturday just been one degree cooler, it would have been a tied record instead.)